Images/prints of the frontier

We saw “The Master” this weekend, which sent us on a Paul Thomas Anderson kick. I will say that while I liked “The Master,” I think my favorite PTA movie is “There Will Be Blood.”

We were watching some extra features on that DVD (“There Will Be Blood”) last night, one of which was a sort of flipbook of frontier photos and illustrations from the olden oil-mining days, and I’m thinking I really love that period. Hard-faced women with deep worry lines and rough-looking bearded men with heavy tools. American Gothic. I really like it.

I found this site of old photographs that will sell you prints for as little as $15, and there’s an interesting range of eras here: mining, railroads, WWII, old-timey Florida. All early 20th-century, late 19th-century images. Go search shorpy.com, see what you like.